This episode is a treasure for the sheer amount of time it spends aloft during a fictional U. S. Eighth Army Air Force bombing mission, as well as for the great attention it pays to historical detail and accuracy. For anyone interested in the legendary Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress or U. S. strategic bombing operations over Europe from bases in England in World War II, it's a real treat. You'll find yourself crawling vicariously through all parts of a B-17 multiple times and it all looks real, because the TV series -- like the movie before it -- filmed in the cutaway fuselage of an actual B-17 in wartime configuration.
Above all, though, it's thanks to the writing team that this particular episode is so good. Veteran Hollywood writer/producer Samuel Roeca wrote an excellent script because he knew what he was talking about. During WWII, Roeca served as a pilot and airplane commander in the 376th Bomb Group, USAAF. His unit flew over North Africa and in the Mediterranean and European theaters of operation. Although Sam Roeca flew Consolidated B-24 Liberators -- the Army's other four-engine "heavy bomber" -- the B-24 and B-17 carried the same number of crew members and contended with identical procedures and operational challenges. In fact, everything that this episode depicts as happening aboard the B-17 Piccadilly Lily might also have happened aboard a B-24.
Further ensuring accuracy was the script review performed by Beirne Lay Jr. A former Eighth Air Force bomb group commander, Lay -- together with his friend, Hollywood writer/producer Sy Bartlett -- had authored both the book version and the screenplay for Twelve O'Clock High, the outstanding 1949 movie that gave rise to this TV series. Lay wrote many scripts for the show himself and served as script consultant and technical advisor for all the rest (78 episodes in all).
Bernie Lay served with the Eighth AF from its earliest days in England, participated in B-17 missions deep into Germany, was given command of a B-24 group, and was shot down a month before D-Day. Parachuting to safety, he was helped by the French underground and eventually made his way back to Allied lines and England. Ironically, his outfit -- the 487th Bomb Group -- had in the meantime converted to B-17s, the airplane the Eighth AF preferred for its superior ability to absorb battle damage.
Sy Bartlett too was an Eighth AF alumnus, serving as an intelligence officer at Eighth Bomber Command. This non-combat post provided him with a front-row seat to utterly fascinating history unfolding before his eyes. Like Lay, he cared passionately that the story of the "Mighty Eighth" -- by far the largest aerial armada in history -- be told with all its human stresses and sacrifices. To put the sheer scale of these operations into perspective, more Americans died in the Eighth Air Force than the U. S. Marine Corps lost in the Pacific Theater during the entire war.
The one liberty taken by this episode, and the series as a whole except at the beginning, was to dispense with oxygen masks even though the B-17 was unpressurized and flew at very high altitude.
This concession to dramatic requirements was made to allow viewers to see the actors' faces as they react and emote.
There are also minor technical errors but they too are entirely forgivable. For example, a lead bombardier would not drop his bombs by touching a button on the floor, which was the technique for other airplanes in the squadron who "dropped on the lead" (the best bombardiers crewed the lead and deputy-lead airplanes). Rather, he'd sight through his Norden bombsight, correct for drift and crosshair tracking rate, and mark the target. However, it was the Norden itself -- a gyrostabilized electro-mechanical computer -- that decided when to release the bombs. The shackle solenoids holding them them to the racks in the bomb bay released in a timed sequence according to how the bombardier had previously set his intervalometer.
Occasionally a shackle would fail to release, resulting in a "hung-up bomb" as depicted in this episode. However, simulating a 1,000-lb bomb must have been too much of a challenge for the prop department, because the one in this episode looks nothing like the real thing. As stated, though, it's forgivable for a TV series filmed with a limited budget and time constraints.
I've deliberately avoided spoilers but will say that the conflict among crew members in this episode likewise rings true, it being solidly grounded in human psychology amid the stresses of war.
Above all, though, it's thanks to the writing team that this particular episode is so good. Veteran Hollywood writer/producer Samuel Roeca wrote an excellent script because he knew what he was talking about. During WWII, Roeca served as a pilot and airplane commander in the 376th Bomb Group, USAAF. His unit flew over North Africa and in the Mediterranean and European theaters of operation. Although Sam Roeca flew Consolidated B-24 Liberators -- the Army's other four-engine "heavy bomber" -- the B-24 and B-17 carried the same number of crew members and contended with identical procedures and operational challenges. In fact, everything that this episode depicts as happening aboard the B-17 Piccadilly Lily might also have happened aboard a B-24.
Further ensuring accuracy was the script review performed by Beirne Lay Jr. A former Eighth Air Force bomb group commander, Lay -- together with his friend, Hollywood writer/producer Sy Bartlett -- had authored both the book version and the screenplay for Twelve O'Clock High, the outstanding 1949 movie that gave rise to this TV series. Lay wrote many scripts for the show himself and served as script consultant and technical advisor for all the rest (78 episodes in all).
Bernie Lay served with the Eighth AF from its earliest days in England, participated in B-17 missions deep into Germany, was given command of a B-24 group, and was shot down a month before D-Day. Parachuting to safety, he was helped by the French underground and eventually made his way back to Allied lines and England. Ironically, his outfit -- the 487th Bomb Group -- had in the meantime converted to B-17s, the airplane the Eighth AF preferred for its superior ability to absorb battle damage.
Sy Bartlett too was an Eighth AF alumnus, serving as an intelligence officer at Eighth Bomber Command. This non-combat post provided him with a front-row seat to utterly fascinating history unfolding before his eyes. Like Lay, he cared passionately that the story of the "Mighty Eighth" -- by far the largest aerial armada in history -- be told with all its human stresses and sacrifices. To put the sheer scale of these operations into perspective, more Americans died in the Eighth Air Force than the U. S. Marine Corps lost in the Pacific Theater during the entire war.
The one liberty taken by this episode, and the series as a whole except at the beginning, was to dispense with oxygen masks even though the B-17 was unpressurized and flew at very high altitude.
This concession to dramatic requirements was made to allow viewers to see the actors' faces as they react and emote.
There are also minor technical errors but they too are entirely forgivable. For example, a lead bombardier would not drop his bombs by touching a button on the floor, which was the technique for other airplanes in the squadron who "dropped on the lead" (the best bombardiers crewed the lead and deputy-lead airplanes). Rather, he'd sight through his Norden bombsight, correct for drift and crosshair tracking rate, and mark the target. However, it was the Norden itself -- a gyrostabilized electro-mechanical computer -- that decided when to release the bombs. The shackle solenoids holding them them to the racks in the bomb bay released in a timed sequence according to how the bombardier had previously set his intervalometer.
Occasionally a shackle would fail to release, resulting in a "hung-up bomb" as depicted in this episode. However, simulating a 1,000-lb bomb must have been too much of a challenge for the prop department, because the one in this episode looks nothing like the real thing. As stated, though, it's forgivable for a TV series filmed with a limited budget and time constraints.
I've deliberately avoided spoilers but will say that the conflict among crew members in this episode likewise rings true, it being solidly grounded in human psychology amid the stresses of war.
